President Robert Mugabe, campaigning for upcoming elections, has signed a new law requiring foreign- and white-owned businesses to hand over 51% control of their operations to blacks, state media reported Sunday.

American forces have bombed fleeing refugees, slaughtered innocent herdsmen and destroyed villages in attempts to assassinate a handful of individual alleged, on shaky and specious evidence, to be "part of" or "associated with" or "linked to" al Qaeda. American agents have seized refugees from the Somali war, including U.S. citizens, and had them "renditioned" to the notorious prisons of the Ethiopian dictatorship. And as we have noted here many times, the Bush Administration has sent in death squads to "kill anyone left alive" after American strikes.

The entire Washington power structure has lined up to support this hideous project: military aggression, murder, destruction and rampant atrocity. Somalia -- already one of the world's most fragile and ravaged nations -- is being battered into utter destruction before our eyes....and in our names.

I would like to believe that there will be some defining moment when Americans will collectively wake up from their slumber, and really see what their government is doing with their tax dollars, while our homeless vets sleep in our streets.

Unfortunately, it appears that precious few are collectively outraged enough before it it will be too late to bring constructive change to the way this government works, if that is possible.

The US government said Wednesday that it believes a new UN Security Council resolution on Somalia authorizes air strikes against pirates in Somali territory.

The resolution "authorizes states cooperating with the Somali Transitional Federal Government to extend counter-piracy efforts to include potential operations in Somali territorial land and air space, to suppress acts of piracy and armed robbery at sea," the State Department said in a statement.

The final version of resolution 1851 does not explicitly say Somali air space can be used.

Webmaster's Commentary:

Memo to the UN Security Council: are you collectively deaf, dumb, and blind to what you have done by not explicitly stating in this resolution that Somali air space cannot be used?!?

The US government's position has been characterized as believing that this resolution "....authorizes air strikes against pirates in Somali territory."

And just what kind of action may the US think it has license to do, courtesy of this resolution??

Very possibly bombing the crap out of innocent men, women, and kids in order to prop up a completely dysfunctional government, now that the US-backed Ethiopian troops are (theoretically) going to be leaving Somalia shortly.

And why? Because the Muslim insurgency is becoming stronger, or that Somalia "may become a hotbed for terrorists" if they take over the government?

Think again: ever wonder why the term "war on terror" only seems to apply to countries sitting over enormous natural resources?

What the US wants is a pliant government in Mogadishu which will be favorable to Western countries in terms of developing Somalia's vast natural resources.

If the US thinks it has "carte blanche" to do this at least for the year this resolution runs, look to the US to initate a massive bombing campaign over sovereign Somali territory to decimate the insurgents.

And now the Bush Regime -- going out in a Götterdämmerung of blood and fury aimed at the world (and at the American people) -- wants to intensify the chaos in Somalia, laying it bare to more invasions, "precision strikes," death squad operations, renditions and other atrocities, this time coming from not just from Washington and its Terror War proxies but from all directions.

Webmaster's Commentary:

But this act is "blood and fury" with a very specific purpose: to ultimately install a pliant government in Mogadishu which will look favorably on the development of Somalia's natural resources, once this is all over.

Since Rwanda and Uganda invaded the Congo in 1996, they have pursued a plan to appropriate the wealth of Eastern Congo either directly or through proxy forces. The December 2008 United Nations report is the latest in a series of U.N. reports dating from 2001 that clearly documents the systematic looting and appropriation of Congolese resources by Rwanda and Uganda, two of Washington and London’s staunchest allies in Africa.

However, in the wake of the December 2008 report, which clearly documents Rwanda’s support of destabilizing proxy forces inside the Congo, a series of stunning proposals and actions have been presented which all appear to be an attempt to cover up or bury the damning U.N. report on the latest expression of Rwanda’s aggression against the Congolese people.

A decision that has been made is related to the controversial issue of where Africa Command's headquarters will be. U.S. officials had wanted it on the continent by October, but that has been delayed. Theresa Whelan says the headquarters will remain in Germany for now, but she hopes AFRICOM will be able to have offices in several places on the continent before long.

Translation: not one of the African countries with whom the US has been in dialogue about having a headquarters in their country wants us!

This is all about the oil and mineral resources in Africa that the US has its eyes on and, to some degree, that China is looking at developing in the region as well.

STRIDENT hostility towards a US military command centre for Africa (Africom) has prompted the US defence establishment to lobby civil society and key stakeholders in Africa, in a bid to garner support for the centre's planned relocation on African soil.

Translation: none of the African countries the US has spoken to about this wants us in their countries, and who can blame them??

Chinese troops have been seen on the streets of Zimbabwe's third largest city, Mutare, according to local witnesses. They were seen patrolling with Zimbabwean soldiers before and during Tuesday's ill-fated general strike called by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

"Nyna Karpachyova, the Ukrainian parliament's human rights ombudsman, said that the real owner of the weapon-ship is an Israeli citizen with the name Vadim Alperin (alias Vadim Oltrena). It is extremely rare for ships to be registered to individual investors such as Mr Alperin. Vadim Alperin was further investigated to have acquired this ship from a Russian state auction during the era of Boris Yeltsin. The ship was refurbished and later conveniently registered to fly the Belize flag. Other ships by the same owner where found to be operating as casinos including one based in the Gulf to entertain rich Arab clients. Vadim Alperin was once quoted to be a "Mossad brother" running a number of clandestine front companies including one Kenyan Meat export company enjoying "good trade" with middle eastern countries, but covertly used for gathering intelligence from countries such as Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia".

With each passing week, anguish and atrocity are deepening in Somalia, the third "regime change" target of George Bush's Terror War. Thousands of innocent people have been killed and a million have been driven from their homes by an Ethiopian invasion backed, funded and armed by the Bush Administration, which has also intervened directly with air strikes, naval shelling, renditions of fleeing refugees (including U.S. citizens) to Ethiopia's notorious prisons and, on at least one occasion, with a U.S. death squad sent in after an airstrike with orders to "kill anyone left alive."

President Robert Mugabe stepped up his violent crackdown on political opponents today as heavily armed police stormed opposition headquarters and the offices of independent election observers on suspicion of plotting to overthrow the government.

With China propping Mugabe up military, (the armament-laden ship which was turned away in South Africa is now coming via Angola), it looks as though the Zimbabwean people are in for the very worst to come in terms of what Mugabe's dictatorship is capable of doing.

Copies of the documentation for the Chinese ship, the An Yue Jiang, show that the weapons were sent from Beijing to the ministry of defence in Harare. Headed "Dangerous goods description and container packing certificate", the document was issued on April 1, three days after Zimbabwe's election. It lists the consignment as including 3.5m rounds of ammunition for AK47 assault rifles and for small arms, 1,500 40mm rockets, 2,500 mortar shells of 60mm and 81mm calibre, as well as 93 cases of mortar tubes.

Looks as though Zimbabwe has been overtaken by Mugabe's military coup.

Reports are coming out of the country that opposition supporters have been beaten and killed by Mugabe's people as revenge for having had the temerity to vote against Mugabe.

In 2006 “the CIA propagated that Al-Qaeda had made its base in Somalia where three senior leaders were residing. CIA then encouraged Ethiopia to invade Somalia in support of weak TFG forces (Transitional Federal Government) against UIC fighters (Union of Islamic Courts) and promised to provide intelligence and air cover. Ethiopian troops backed by USA invaded Somalia on 28 December 2006. The UIC was quickly defeated in a sweeping offensive and the six-month peace period was shattered. It was believed that the UIC leadership fled into Kenya or to Yemen and the hard-line fighters cached their arms and melded back into their clans leaving the mostly untrained, new recruits to face the Ethiopian troops.

President Barack Obama responded with strong words Monday to North Korea's announcement that it has conducted a nuclear test and its decision to attempt a short-range missile launch.

"North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile programs pose a grave threat to the peace and security of the world and I strongly condemn their reckless action," the president said in a statement in the White House Rose Garden. "North Korea will not find security and respect through threats and illegal weapons."

Talk about being a hypocrite! Obama dodged and weaved to avoid answering Helen Thomas' question, "What nations in the middle east currently have nuclear weapons", to avoid embarrassing Israel, then turns around and slams North Korea for "illegal" weapons.

If nuclear weapons outside the NNPT are illegal, then they are illegal for all.

Islamabad: Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has told tribal elders that his administration is left with no other option except using air strikes to eliminate high profile terrorists in the restive tribal region of the country, officials said.

"Air strikes in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) will continue to eliminate high value terrorist targets hiding there," Zardari told the tribal leaders who complained to him about the loss of innocent people in the tribal region, especially in air strikes.

Webmaster's Commentary:

What Zardari has told these tribal elders, essentially, is that his government has to continue killing innocent Pakistanis to "save" the country from terrorists.

And he has clearly demonstrated to them that he is absolutely incapable of stopping US drone attacks on Pakistani civilians.

I can almost see some of these tribal elders, hearing what they heard, scratching their heads in bewilderment, and saying to each other "This was the guy this country elected?!?!?

President Bush’s senior national security advisers are debating whether to expand the authority of the Central Intelligence Agency and the military to conduct far more aggressive covert operations in the tribal areas of Pakistan.

The debate is a response to intelligence reports that Al Qaeda and the Taliban are intensifying efforts there to destabilize the Pakistani government, several senior administration officials said.

In a move which could heighten tension between New Delhi and Islamabad, Pakistan has purportedly moved its tenth brigade to Lahore and ordered its third Armed Brigade to march towards Jhelum.

Confirming the news, Additional Director general of BSF, Barmer, UK Bansal said, “There is a lot of activity along at the Pakistan side of India-Pakistan border near Barmer in Rajasthan and Pakistan Rangers have been replaced by the Pakistan Army.”

Webmaster's Commentary:

Both India and Pakistan need some true adults in the corridors of power in New Delhi and Islamabad.

It would take so little to get an actual military confrontation going here.

Another regional war cannot possibly benefit either the people of India or Pakistan.

Stratfor, the publisher of geopolitical intelligence on Tuesday, in its report says after Mumbai attacks, India relayed a message to Pakistan via the US that they would be given “30 days to carry out significant actions in cracking down on militant groups operating on Pakistani soil”.

The US made clear to Pakistan that Islamabad will have to deliver on India's demands or else Washington will not be able to stand in New Delhi's way, it said.

Webmaster's Commentary:

It appears that if the government is Islamabad is not seen as responding to Indian demands, Washington has told them it cannot prevent what India may do next, whatever that may be.

That "drop-dead date" folks, is tomorrow, 26 December.

This whole situation appears to be devolving into a real can of worms, particularly if the Stratfor reports that the US is "already preparing for a 'worst-case scenario' "

A suspected US missile strike on a tribal area in northwest Pakistan known as a hub of Taliban and Al-Qaeda activity killed at least eight militants on Monday, officials said.

The strikes caused huge fires in both villages, sending panicked residents running into the streets, he said.

Webmaster's Commentary:

One has to wonder when the term "body count" is going to come back into vogue in the corporate news. I would strongly suspect that the actual casualty count is far larger than 8.

If those in power in Islamabad do not understand that they are very well the next target in the US and NATO's "wars without end", they are foolish indeed.

You have to wonder if the "real reason" for these bombings is to create enough instability in Pakistan to topple Zardari's government and install a western-leaning junta which rules Pakistan with an iron fist.

The only problem with this magical thinking is, it won't work. Aerial bombing, and the Pakistani government's perceived impotence by its people to be unable do anything to stop it, guarantees two things, and two things only.

First, just as is unfolding in Afghanistan, you're going to get a lot of collateral damage. Children, infants, women, the medically infirm,and the elderly, are going to wind up blown to bits and maimed.

The second thing aerial bombing absolutely guarantees is to radicalize those left standing against the existing government.

Over 10,000 furious Pakistanis marched in Peshawar last week to demand that Pakistan's government forbid the US and NATO from using its routes to supply materials for the war in Afghanistan.

(Of course, you didn't get that story if you were watching any corporate media, but it did run here.)

The radicalization has begun; it may only be a matter of time before the Pakistani government will be unable to control the anger of its people at what the they perceive is deep collusion between the Pakistani government and those state agents which are killing Pakistani people.

India may consider “precision” strikes inside Pakistan-administered Kashmir if its neighbor doesn’t cooperate in controlling terrorists, a U.S. private intelligence company said.

“Indian military operations against targets in Pakistan have in fact been prepared and await the signal to go forward,” Austin, Texas-based Stratfor said in a report today, without providing details of its source of information.

Webmaster's Commentary:

Let's hope this is just saber-rattling, and not what is actually being planned.

This may be a "feed" to provide for political cover for Israeli planes (with Indian markings) to strike inside Pakistan, as reported by Wayne Madsen two weeks ago.

Armed with sufficient material on the terror attacks in Mumbai to nail Pakistan, India will mount a diplomatic offensive from Monday by convening a two-day closed door meeting in New Delhi [Images] with the heads of all foreign countries' missions in the national capital as part of strategy to get Pakistan declared as a 'terrorist State'.

Webmaster's Commentary:

This looks like complete posturing, on the part of the Indian government, to attempt to get Pakistan to crack down harder on militant groups which attack and plan attacks on India.

And note that this is happening right after the US's FBI made a statement that although the lone surviving terrorist, Ajmal Kasab was a Pakistani nationa, they had concluded that Pakistan's strong> ISI was not involved in the Mumbai attacks., as reported here in Press TV:

The US and NATO will be very hard-pressed, at this very delicate moment, to declare Pakistan a "terrorist state", because they are absolutely dependent on getting supplies through Pakistan via the Khyber Pass into Afghanistan.

So what now?!?

Both Pakistan and India need some adults in the room in the corridors of power in Islamabad and New Delhi to improve security,build confidence, and stabilize the region.

And that referendum on the status of Kashmir, as mandated by the UN resolution in 1948 but which has never actually taken place?

Holding that referendum, honestly and openly, would probably dramatically increase the possibilities for peace in this region.

Insisting that the steps taken by Pakistan in the wake of the Mumbai attacks are "not nearly enough", the US has advised it to keep on working to "really deal" with terrorism to help ease the "crisis" with India.

Neither India nor Pakistan wanted to escalate tensions and "no one was speaking in belligerent language", secretary of state Condoleezza Rice said at a function.

that "Armed with sufficient material on the terror attacks in Mumbai to nail Pakistan, India will mount a diplomatic offensive from Monday by convening a two-day closed door meeting in New Delhi [Images] with the heads of all foreign countries' missions in the national capital as part of strategy to get Pakistan declared as a 'terrorist State'."

Secretary Rice, if this is not 'belligerent language', i.e., hoping to get Pakistan branded as a "terrorist state", then please enlighten me as to how the heck you characterize 'belligerent language' ?!?!?!?

The Centre is now viewing the Mumbai attacks as the direct handiwork of Pakistan’s military that trained and armed the militants and planned the strike in detail, top government sources are saying.

The nuanced change in Delhi’s views follows the interrogation of gunman Mohammed Ajmal, an analysis of the attack by ballistics specialists in the military and the conclusion that the attackers were trained professionally.

Webmaster's Commentary:

The rhetoric is heating up and getting out of control, regarding these accusations. And in spite of Secretary Rice's assurances that no "belligerent language" is being used, well....it's obvious that neither Secretary Rice or her staff has read this.

We may well be seeing a coordinated timing of these accusations as a lead-up to a military conflict between India and Pakistan, a war which both countries claim that they don't want to see happen.

Notice the use of a New York Times report about the attack against the Indian embassy in Kabul in September of this year as a convenient way to accuse the Pakistani military of complicity in the attacks in Mumbai"...New York Times report that quoted CIA analysts as saying Kayani had prior knowledge of the Kabul attack." as the reason for belief that the Pakistani army is responsible for the massacre in Mumbai.

The report to which the writer appears to be alluding is seen here, 12 September 2008:

"Analysts at the Central Intelligence Agency and other American spy and security agencies believe that not only the bombing of India’s embassy in Kabul in July by militants was aided by ISI operatives, but also that the highest levels of Pakistan’s security apparatus, including army chief Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, had knowledge of the plot."

Notice the language here, regarding this accusation relative to the bombing of India's embassy in Kabul:

"Analysts at the Central Intelligence Agency and other American spy and security agencies believe......."

Notice that this never sourced. There is never any concrete proof presented that Pakistani General Kayani knew about the terror plot to bomb the Indian embassy in Kabul, or that he was complicit in this.

This is predicated on a belief, only, nothing more.

I am hoping that cooler heads will prevail in New Delhi and Islamabad, but I wouldn't bet on this at all right now, looking at the spiraling downturn in relations between these two countries.

Kamal Hyder, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Pakistan, said the local media attributed its reports to military sources, who were confirming that the navy, air force and army were on red alert.

"The Pakistani air force have been seen visibly in a number of locations flying close to the Pakistani-India border in what is being described as an aggressive patrolling mode, following reports that India is planning pre-emptive strikes against locations in Pakistan," Hyder reported.

Webmaster's Commentary:

For two countries each claiming that they don't want this war, India and Pakistan appear to be moving inexorably toward war.

Is the media in both countries hyping this possibility?

Probably.

But one stupid mistake, one tiny miscalculation, or one misinterpretation of what is perceived on either side, could be the spark which triggers the explosion here.

A flurry of visits to Washington by senior Pakistani military officers is underway, to be followed on May 6th-7th by visits by Pakistan President Zardari and Afghan President Karzai. Neither man is held in high regard in Washington. Indeed, a prime reason for the military visits is that Administration officials believe some form of military rule is likely to emerge in Islamabad in the foreseeable future.

Webmaster's Commentary:

And when it comes to creating another tin-pot dictator pledged to do anything to serve American interests, the US normally likes to be right at the front of the process, and the first instigator of any back-room deals to be done.

The fighting is inflicting a mounting human toll. The army estimates that 800,000 people have been left homeless by the latest fighting, bringing the total number of displaced people in North West Frontier province to more than 1.3 million. About four-fifths of those are thought to be sheltering with friends or relatives, particularly in Mardan and Swabi districts, while about 130,000 are living in tents.

While conditions in the hastily-erected camps are rough and hot, authorities have managed to ensure adequate food and water. But disgruntlement among the displaced is rising, and, combined with anger over civilian deaths caused by army shelling, analysts say the government is in danger of squandering a wave of public sympathy for the operation.

n the aftermath of the 2006 war, the UN put the figure of unexploded duds at about one million. So far deminers in south Lebanon have cleared about 155,000 cluster bomblets, though the rate of new discovery is slowing. By January 2008, deminers had cleared 137,000 bomblets, meaning only around 18,000 bomblets were cleared in the past year.

On NBC’s Today Show this morning, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said that President Obama has ordered him to update the plans for a US attack on Iran, plans which were last updating during the Bush Administration. Gates says the plans are “refreshed” and insists that “all options are on the table” with respect to the potential attack.

President Barack Obama suggested that Iran may have some right to nuclear energy _ provided it proves by the end of the year that its aspirations are peaceful.

Webmaster's Commentary:

Tel Aviv is not going to like this, but it is in the NNPT.

And might I remind President Obama that under Article IV of the NNPT that the United States is obligated to HELP Iran build its nuclear power station, which would give the US all the access it needs to satisfy anyone (except Israel) that Iran's power station is just a power station.

Tehran will now turn to China for the HongQi-9/FD-2000 system which reportedly combines elements “borrowed” from the Russian S-300 and the AmericanMIM-104 Patriot system, according to the Iranian news agency.

The world has no choice but to compare the threat posed by Iran now to that of Nazi Germany before the Second World War, President Shimon Peres told U.S. President Barack Obama in Washington on Tuesday.

With the revelation that prisoners were tortured into making false confessions that were the foundation for the war in Iraq, the fact is that this is and always has been an illegal war and the time to stop it is right now.

Nobody can make any argument as to why our young men and women should continue to be killed in Iraq.

Now that you're beginning to talk about the fact that our country tortured people in order to elicit war rationales, can we talk for a minute? I'd like to point a few things out that you can verify without spending a dime on investigative reporting. First, we now know that we tortured in hopes of producing justifications for a war. Let's suppose that this was done in "good faith" and that the lies al Libi told to stop the pain were actually true. We know that the torturing preceded and exceeded the OLC memos, the OLC memos were themselves insane (I think that's the legal term for it, but you can ask your lawyers), and dozens of people were tortured until they were dead. Let's suppose none of that to be the case.

Webmaster's Commentary:

None of that would change the fundamental fact that we were not torturing for defense of this nation but for an offensive attack on another nation.

None of that would change the fundamental fact that we were not torturing for defense of this nation but for an offensive attack on another nation.

None of that would change the fundamental fact that we were not torturing for defense of this nation but for an offensive attack on another nation.

None of that would change the fundamental fact that we were not torturing for defense of this nation but for an offensive attack on another nation.

As more White House condoned torture atrocities are slowly revealed ~ It seems more and more likely that Dick Cheney was complicit, or at the very least, took advantage of the 9/11 attacks and used it as an excuse to implement his grand neocon agenda ~ using these attacks as a justification for shredding the constitution, violating the Geneva Convention, blatantly violating human rights and covering his 9/11 involvement tracks by forcing confessions for the 9/11 commission through illegal torture of detainees.

Well, 5 hours after the 9/11 attacks, Donald Rumsfeld said "my interest is to hit Saddam".

He also said "Go massive . . . Sweep it all up. Things related and not."

And at 2:40 p.m. on September 11th, in a memorandum of discussions between top administration officials, several lines below the statement "judge whether good enough [to] hit S.H. [that is, Saddam Hussein] at same time", is the statement "Hard to get a good case." In other words, top officials knew that there wasn't a good case that Hussein was behind 9/11, but they wanted to use the 9/11 attacks as an excuse to justify war with Iraq anyway.

An airstrike of international troops on Friday night killed a road construction worker and wounded 18 others in Afghanistan's Wardak province, some 70 km west of the capital Kabul, an official said on Saturday.

Webmaster's Commentary:

More of NATO's operations to win the hearts and minds of the Afghans, I suppose.

Afghanistan produces more than 90 percent of the world’s opium, most of it refined into heroin inside the country, an enterprise that earns the extremist Taliban millions of dollars a year for their insurgency against the government.

It is also the world’s second largest source of cannabis resin, producing 1,603 metric tonnes in 2006 after Morocco’s 1,915 tonnes, according to the UN’s World Drug Report 2008.

Webmaster's Commentary:

So let me get this straight; so far, the biggest "winner" in the US's alleged "war on terror" in Afghanistan are.......the drug dealers??!?!?!?

One of my clients is Binyam Mohammed. He was rendered to Morocco. We’ve got the flight logs. We know the very names of the soldiers who were on the flight, and he was taken there, and he was tortured for 18 months, a razor blade taken to his penis, for goodness sake, and now the U.S. military is putting him on trial in Guantanamo.

The United States is poised to appoint a new leader in Afghanistan. It seems that Washington is disappointed with the work of current Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Karzai is the former Unocal executive who was appointed and then later "elected" President following the NATO invasion and defeat of the Taliban government of Afghanistan in 2001. Karzai's rule has been marked by two related and disturbing trends: a deteriorating security situation and an increase in opium production. Though these developments are nothing new, almost to the point where they could be considered traditional in the region, (read your history) the Americans seem to have had about enough of Karzai, thinking that they can find a better puppet.

British pilots in Afghanistan are firing an increasing number of "enhanced blast" thermobaric weapons, designed to kill everyone in buildings they strike, the Ministry of Defence has revealed.

Its wider use was disclosed by John Hutton, the defence secretary, in answer to a parliamentary answer from Nick Harvey, the Liberal Democrat defence spokesman. "Given the MoD's reluctance to admit they were even going to use these weapons, they now seem to be getting rather more trigger-happy," Harvey said yesterday. "If these controversial weapons are being fired on a weekly basis in Afghanistan, we need to know that they are being used according to strict rules of engagement."

Webmaster's Commentary:

The most probably reality is that these weapons are being used indiscriminately, killing all - including women, kids, and the medically infirm - in their wake.

The Afghans do not hate the Brits, Americans, or NATO soldiers "because we are free"; they hate us because we are killing their wives, their husbands, their infants, their aunts and uncles, and friends, many of whom just want to stay out of the way of combat.

Warning: these are horrifically graphic and profoundly disturbing images.

However, since these casualties have been purchased with your tax dollars, you have a right to know just what those tax dollars are buying in Afghanistan.

Imagine, for one moment, that the kid in the top image was your kid. You had done nothing wrong; he had done nothing wrong, other than being at absolutely the wrong place at the wrong time.

The Afghani people do not hate us "because we are free."

And notice what this aerial bombing has accomplished; intense collateral damage, resulting in further radicalization of the people against the very government the US is attempting to prop up by doing the bombing raids.

In the forbidding Afghan desert, US engineers are carving out a sprawling military camp as part of a dramatic American troop build-up designed to confront Taliban insurgents.

The desolate plain in southern Helmand province that Afghans call the "desert of death" has turned into a hive of frenetic activity, underscoring President Barack Obama's decision to expand the US military commitment to the war.

An end to air strikes in Afghanistan, demanded by President Hamid Karzai after scores of civilians were allegedly killed this week, would deprive Afghan troops of vital protection, a US official said Friday.

Webmaster's Commentary:

These airstrikes are not enhancing US or Afghani military security; they are doing just the converse.

And by continuing these airstrikes, the US and NATO are collectively slouching toward their very own "Saigon Moment" in Afghanistan.

The Obama White House says that the 21,000 additional troops are to reinforce security ahead of the August 20 presidential elections, and are to support the NATO-led troops which have struggled to fight an escalating insurgency there.

The surge in US troops in Afghanistan comes amid frosty relations between Kabul and Washington, over the US bombing of civilians about a month ago.

The raid which left some 150 people including 95 children dead is dubbed as the deadliest incident for Afghan civilians since the 2001 US-led invasion.

Reluctance to wage war with an ill-equipped Army could have dictated India's decision not to attack Pakistan in the aftermath of the Mumbai terror attack. However, a framework for covert operations is being put in place, according to a news report carried by the Hong Kong-based Asia Times Online.

The sudden and mysterious disappearance of a prime witness in the Mumbai terror attacks has caused a major embarrassment to police and intelligence agencies. A high-ranking police source said that a major effort is on to track down Anita Rajendra Uddaiya (47), who had seen the group of 10 terrorists landing at the Badhwar Park bay in Colaba November 26.

That some, or all of the attackers stayed there before the attacks seem no longer in question. Later news reports state that the terrorists came to Nariman House posing as Malaysian students and were given lodging. Why Ultra-orthodox Jews would give lodging to these unknown Malaysian Muslim students is baffling; they could have been ‘terrorists’. After all they did not know them.

However, it is well known that those housing quarters are rented only to religious Jews passing through Mumbai, so much so that the Indian Police wanted to know why they were rented to non-Jews in this instance.

Britain has warned Pakistan after the Mumbai terror attacks that India was losing patience and the United Kingdom like the US was worried that lack of cooperation from Islamabad could provoke some unwanted developments.

Basically, the Pentagon and the CIA are working in tandem to force targeted nations like India and Pakistan to accept the decision which has been made to "outsource" the terror war to them and other patsy nations like them. Agency contract hits like the Mumbai attack and bombings in FATA are blamed on "al Qaida" by the government-controlled media in the West and in the media controlled by the "patsy" foreign governments. Biased, hate-based reporting serves to drive patriotic fervor to a frenzied state.

Two intelligence officials said the army's 14th Division was being redeployed to Kasur and Sialkot, close to the Indian border. They said some 20,000 troops were on the move. Earlier Friday, a security official said that all troop leave had been canceled.

An Associated Press reporter in Dera Ismail Khan, a district that borders the Afghan-frontier province of South Waziristan, said he saw around 40 trucks loaded with soldiers heading away from the Afghan border.

Webmaster's Commentary:

Today was the deadline India gave Pakistan to give a clear signal that it is going to crack down on "non-state operatives" within its borders, and turn over suspects India had demanded from them.

This troop Pakistani troop movement doesn't augur well for efforts toward peace in the region, and really puts a hefty crimp on US and NATO activities in the border area between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

A letter written by the sole surviving gunman, Mohammad Ajmal Ameer Qasab, was delivered to the acting high commissioner in New Delhi this evening. According to India's foreign ministry, Qasab "stated that he and the other terrorists killed in the attack were from Pakistan."

Webmaster's Commentary:

And they only had to waterboard him for five minutes to get that letter, so it MUST be true!

Leader of the House in the Senate Raza Rabbani Wednesday said India will not be allowed to launch air assault and each and every inch of the country will be safeguarded.

The National Assembly has also passed a unanimous resolution condemning November 26 Mumbai attacks but urged India not to create war hype as it is not an option because of nuclear capabilities of both countries.

The resolution, moved by Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Malik Ammad Ahmed and supported by the whole house, also asked India to exercise restraint from activities undermining Pakistan’s sovereignty.

Webmaster's Commentary:

What is so dangerous about this situation is that one tiny wrong move, one miscalculation, could be the spark igniting a flame of warfare throughout the region.

The Senate on Tuesday castigated India for staging a drama to implicate Pakistan in the Mumbai attacks without solid proofs, as the legislators displayed complete unanimity in their resolve to safeguard national integrity in case of any aggression from across the border.

Lawmakers from across the divide challenged New Delhi to come up with evidence, if any, of Pakistan or its citizens’ involvement in the last month’s incidents. Some saw the Indian war hysteria as a global conspiracy to disintegrate the country and a senator referred to a New York Times report in this context.

Indian police last week arrested Hassan Ali Khan, who was wanted for investigations into money laundering and other illicit activities, and who is also said to have ties to Dawood Ibrahim, the underworld kingpin who evidence indicates was the mastermind behind the terrorist attacks in Mumbai last month.

Ibrahim is also alleged to have close ties with both Pakistan’s Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) agency and the CIA.

Even as India refused to take the military option off the table while asking Pakistan to rein in the terrorists, the Indian Army's and IAF's quick reaction teams (QRTs) were deployed along the borders in the Western Sector.

These measures were taken following reports that Pakistan has deployed its forces along its border. IAF sources said security around places of strategic importance has been stepped up. They said more radars and QRTs have been deployed along the India-Pakistan border.

Webmaster's Commentary:

For a new war each country claims they don't want to start, this is starting to get very ugly very quickly.

Maintaining that "there is more than what meets the eyes", Antulay said Karkare was investigating some cases in which "there are non-Muslims also", an apparent reference to the Malegaon blasts case in which sadhvi Pragya Thakur and a Lt-Colonel Shrikant Prasad Purohit were among the 11 persons to be arrested."Unfortunately his end came. It may be a separate inquiry how his (Karkare's) end came," he told reporters outside Parliament.

Questions have been raised in India over the police handling of the arrest of a man suspected of handling mobile phone cards used by Mumbai's attackers.

Calcutta police arrested Mukhtar Ahmed for procuring SIM cards for the group without knowing that he was an undercover operative.

He was on a long-term mission with police in Indian-administered Kashmir.

Senior intelligence sources say a "high-value asset" has been blown and his family put at risk.

Webmaster's Commentary:

As India warms up for an attack on Pakistan in "retaliation" for Mumbai, we need to remember that at least one of the arrested "terrorists" worked for Indian security services and was on an undercover mission while providing Cell Phone SIM cards to the attackers!

Venezuelan and Ecuadorean troops deployed on Colombia's frontier last night as South America's military and diplomatic crisis escalated into a dangerous showdown between President Hugo Chávez and Colombia's US-backed government.

"Whoa, not all at once! C'mon people,, take a number and get in line, we'll get to all of you want to join as quick as we can! Pass it down to the people still standing outside the door back there, will you?"

Bolivian President Evo Morales declared U.S. embassy official Vincent Cooper an "undesirable person" Monday, citing charges that Cooper was trying to organize a spy ring, according to news reaching here.

Declassified documents and interviews on the ground in Bolivia prove that the Bush Administration is using U.S. taxpayers' money to undermine the Morales government and coopt the country's dynamic social movements--just as it has tried to do recently in Venezuela and traditionally throughout Latin America.

Organized, well-financed and violent Mexican kidnapping cells are targeting a growing number of U.S. citizens visiting communities popular with San Diegans and other California residents.

Last year, at least 26 San Diego County residents were kidnapped and held for ransom in Tijuana, Rosarito Beach or Ensenada, local FBI agents overseeing the cases said yesterday. In 2006, at least 11 county residents had been kidnapped in the three communities.

“Some of the 26 were recovered, some were hurt and some were killed,” said agent Alex Horan, who directs the FBI's violent-crime squad in San Diego.

The Bolivian district attorney’s office has identified Hugo Achá Melgar who, according to the AFP news agency, is Bolivia’s representative to the U.S. Human Rights Foundation (HRF), as providing the bulk of the funds for the terrorist gang foiled in Santa Cruz while plotting to assassinate President Evo Morales.

The HRF is a New York-based nongovernmental organization known for its activities of interference and CIA links.

"The war with the US has already begun and they are blocking our purchases of food", Venezuelan Minister RamÃ³n RodrÃ­guez ChacÃ­n told viewers on Venezuelan TV on March 12. His statement came at a time when the US is threatening to add Venezuela to its list of "terror-sponsoring" states and some Senators are calling for a full blockade of the country.

According to a spokesperson for a new radical group calling itself the Juárez Citizens Command is threatening to strike back against lawlessness that has gripped Mexico for a long time, they say that they are going to strike back by killing one criminal a day until order and piece is restored. Similar groups are popping up all across Mexico.

Webmaster's Commentary:

This is why I knew all the so-called "militias" we were supposed to be so scared of during the Clinton years were all FBI fakes.

Here we had a President (and predecessor and successor) up to his neck in illegal drug profits, and these militias that were supposedly arming themselves to start a revolution would never go after the most obvious targets; the drug dealers who were the foundation of the economic pyramid on which the narcopoly rested.

Military personnel kidnapped the ambassadors of Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua in Honduras, along with the Honduran Foreign Relations Minister Patricia Rodas, according to Venezuela’s ambassador to the Organization of American States (OAS), Roy Chaderton.

Chaderton made the announcement just before noon today during an emergency meeting of the OAS in Washington that was convened to respond to the military coup d’etat underway in the Honduras.

“Excuse the interruption, it is an urgent matter. I have just received information in this moment that the ambassadors of Nicaragua, Cuba, Venezuela,and Foreign Relations Minister Patricia Rodas have been kidnapped by a group ofhooded military agents,” said Chaderton.

The War on Drugs meets the War on Terror, and the result, inevitably, is stone-cold murder: Colombia Killings Cast Doubt on War Against Insurgents (NYT):

"With soldiers under intense pressure in recent years to register combat kills to earn promotions and benefits like time off and extra pay, reports of civilian killings are climbing, prosecutors and researchers say, pointing to a grisly facet of Colombia’s long internal war against leftist insurgencies."

Has anyone considered that the CIA and its stooges in Colombia KNEW perfectly well that negotiations on the release of the French and American hostages were close to success, and that this raid was INTENDED to destroy those negotiations?

If the hostages die in captivity, the propaganda benefits to the USA and France and to Uribe in Colombia will be immense. The Greek chorus of the media will be instructed to play up their lives and show pictures of bereaved wives and orphaned children of the hostages.

"These are attacks directed at the top commanders of the city police, and it is not just happening in Ciudad Juarez," Mayor Jose Reyes Ferriz said at the funeral of the latest victim, police director Juan Antonio Roman Garcia. "It is happening in Nuevo Laredo, in Tijuana, in this entire region," he said. "They are attacking top commanders to destabilize the police force."

The killings are in response to a crackdown launched by President Felipe Calderon, who has sent thousands of soldiers and federal police across the nation to confront the cartels. Drug lords have hit back by sending killers to attack police with hand grenades and assault rifles.

The U.S. State Department has issued an alert, warning travelers that the "equivalent to military small-unit combat" is taking place across the southern U.S. border in Mexico and that Americans are being kidnapped and murdered there.

"Recent Mexican army and police force conflicts with heavily-armed narcotics cartels have escalated to levels equivalent to military small-unit combat and have included use of machine guns and fragmentation grenades," said the State Department alert.

President Hugo Chavez on Sunday ordered thousands of troops to the border with Colombia after Colombia's military killed a top rebel leader.

Chavez told his defense minister: "Move 10 battalions for me to the border with Colombia, immediately." He also ordered the Venezuelan Embassy in Colombia closed and said all embassy personnel would be withdrawn.

This could get very ugly, very quickly.

Of course, there is precious little the US can do about it, as most of our military resources are tied up in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Bolivia's richest region of Santa Cruz voted overwhelmingly for autonomy Sunday in a vote widely seen as a rejection of President Evo Morales' leftist reforms, exit polls showed.

Despite Morales' rejection of the validity of the ballot, the resounding "yes" vote could force him to negotiate with his opponents in Santa Cruz and three other pro-autonomy regions in Bolivia's eastern lowlands.

A crisis that threatens to split Bolivia has worsened, with the government freezing the accounts of the eastern province of Santa Cruz just days before the territory holds a referendum on whether to declare autonomy.

The move, announced by Economy Minister Luis Alberto Arce late Thursday, deepens tensions between Santa Cruz's opposition governor and the leftwing administration of President Evo Morales.

Beyond the sound and fury of its conquest of Iraq and campaign against Iran, the world's dominant power is waging a largely unreported war on another continent - Latin America. Using proxies, Washington aims to restore and reinforce the political control of a privileged group calling itself middle-class, to shift the responsibility for massacres and drug trafficking away from the psychotic regime in Colombia and its mafiosi, and to extinguish hopes raised among Latin America's impoverished majority by the reform governments of Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia.

Navarro was quoted by the daily Moscow News as saying that a failed 2002 coup that briefly ousted President Hugo Chavez involved Israeli Mossad intelligence snipers "who were Venezuelan citizens, but Jews." The remarks appeared in an interview the newspaper published on May 15. Advertisement The group said in a statement Friday that it wrote a letter to Venezuela's foreign minister saying the comments were racist and incite violence against Jews.

Note that they don't actually deny that Mossad were involved. It's just icky-poo and rude to mention it.

Look, it is this simple - the Intelligence was not just sexed-up, it was concocted - further, the legal advice was not just sexed-up, it was also concocted - so, "the supreme international war crime" (according to the Geneva Conventions) of waging aggressive war on a sovereign state, was indeed committed by Blair, Goldsmith, Straw, Hoon, Falconer, Morgan and others.

One should judge Nicolas Sarkozy according to his actions, and not according to his personality. Yet when his doings surprise even his own constituents, it is legitimate to take a detailed look at his biography and question the bonds that brought him to power. Thierry Meyssan has decided to write the truth about the French Republic’s president background.

In 2001, Portugal became the only EU-member state to decriminalize drugs, a distinction which continues through to the present. Last year, working with the Cato Institute, I went to that country in order to research the effects of the decriminalization law (which applies to all substances, including cocaine and heroin) and to interview both Portuguese and EU drug policy officials and analysts (the central EU drug policy monitoring agency is, by coincidence, based in Lisbon). Evaluating the policy strictly from an empirical perspective, decriminalization has been an unquestionable success, leading to improvements in virtually every relevant category and enabling Portugal to manage drug-related problems (and drug usage rates) far better than most Western nations that continue to treat adult drug consumption as a criminal offense.

Spearheaded by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, the EU and its member states, in their relentless pursuit of a federal superstate, may break its own laws and ram through the Lisbon Treaty despite it being rejected by Irish voters today.

Chris Davies, a Liberal Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the North-West of the UK, is a member of the Budget Control Committee of the European Parliament. As he told BBC’s Today Programme (listen here), he discovered, quite by chance, that Parliament’s auditors had made a report detailing abuses on a vast scale, abuses that suggest some MEPs are simply plundering the system to enrich themselves.

John Burton, Mr Blair's political agent in his Sedgefield constituency for 24 years, says that Labour's most successful ever leader – in terms of elections won – was driven by the belief that "good should triumph over evil".

"It's very simple to explain the idea of Blair the Warrior," he says. "It was part of Tony living out his faith."

Webmaster's Commentary:

One has to wonder about a "faith" which requires the absolute destruction of a country which was never any real threat to the UK or the west.

What has been left in the wake of the invasion and occupation of Iraq is the utter devastation of that country, the infrastructure, with its medical systems and educational systems absolutely destroyed.

Oh, and let's not forget the dumping of tons of depleted uranium by coalition forces,, leaving large sections of the population mortally ill with cancer, and with huge numbers of birth defects in its wake.

Any god which demands those kinds of outcomes from their followers is a pretty spiritually evil deity.

You can't even really tell the difference between insane and religious other than that the religion has been established as having it's own brand of insanity passed on to an idiot where as regular insanity at least requires some creativity on the part of the crazy person.

In the modern world psychology has to give religion a pass because under any other context those same beliefs would constitute major schizophrenia, delusion, paranoia, and narcissism all at the same time.

THE LATE President Milosevic's secret police chief and organiser of Serb death squads during the genocidal ethnic cleansing of disintegrating Yugoslavia was the United States' top CIA agent in Belgrade, according to the independent Belgrade Radio B92.

The claim that from 1992 until the end of the decade, Jovica Stanisic, head of Serbia's murderous DB Secret Police, was regularly informing his CIA handlers of the thinking in Milosevic's inner circle has shocked the region.

Stanisic is said to have loyally served his two masters for eight years. He is facing war crimes charges at the International Criminal Court at The Hague.

A consignment of Russian fighter jets has been shipped to Sudan from Belarus, in an apparent breach of a UN Security Council resolution banning arms sales to the African state, the Sudan Tribune said.

Years ago I was sailing on a tall ship, and as we approached the dock it was obvious that the Captain had made the approach too fast. Although it took almost a minute of waiting, everyone on board knew some kind of collision was about to happen, no matter how hard the crew tried to slow the speed of the ship. Finally we did hit, and while the damage was minor, mostly to the port side jumper strut, I recall the sickening feeling of inevitability where you knew disaster was coming and there was nothing you could do about it.

I get that same feeling watching events today. It seems like a new global war is coming and nothing can stop it even though the vast majority of the people living on Earth who will be forced to pay for and die in a new global war with to avoid it. The world's leaders see us all as little more than ants in a jar to be goaded into killing each other off for a few minutes' amusement.

The United States and Ukraine risked irking Moscow by signing a strategic accord Friday that calls for a US diplomatic post in Crimea, a Russian-speaking area where Russia's Black Sea Fleet is based.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Ogryzko signed the "charter on strategic partnership" that the State Department calls a statement of US intent to "intensify our engagement with Ukraine."

Russia will deploy a new multiple-warhead, nuclear-capable missile after a key US-Russian arms control treaty expires in December, a top general said on Tuesday, quoted by news agencies. “After December 5, that is after the expiration of the START-1 treaty, a regiment with one command centre and one rocket division armed with RS-24 complexes with detachable warheads will be placed on a state of combat readiness,” General Nikolai Solovtsov was quoted as saying.

Webmaster's Commentary:

My understanding is that these new warheads are able to maneuver during the re-entry phase, rather than simply follow a ballistic ark, rendering this highly expensive and already dubious US missile defense system obsolete before it is even completed.

Konashenko pulls a green compass out of his shirt pocket and opens it. It's a U.S. military model. "This is a little trophy -- a gift from one of my soldiers," he says. "Everything that the Georgians left behind, I mean everything, was American. All the guns, grenades, uniforms, boots, food rations -- they just left it all. Our boys stuffed themselves on the food," he adds slyly. "It was tasty." The booty, according to Konashenko, also included 65 intact tanks outfitted with the latest NATO and American (as well as Israeli) technology.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev criticised the United States in his first annual address to the nation on Wednesday, blaming "selfish" U.S. foreign policy for Moscow's war with Georgia.

Webmaster's Commentary:

Medvedev is correct. The US was (is?) planning war with Iran, and because of the pact between Iran and Russia, together with Russia's stated intentions to support Iran in the event of war, the US feared Russian logistical support to Iran via ground convoy through Georgia. Starting in November of last year, both Israel and the US started supplying arms and training to Georgian troops. The strategists expected that the Ossetia conflict would degrade into a prolonged border clash which would close the passes through the Caucasus mountains, and with expected air superiority over Iran, this would prevent meaningful Russian intervention in the planned war.

Of course, the best laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley and the Russians blew through the Georgian troops like they were wet kleenex and the Iran war plan fell apart at that point.

Russia will deploy short-range missiles near Poland to counter U.S. military plans in Eastern Europe, President Dmitry Medvedev warned Wednesday, setting a combative tone that clashed with global goodwill over Barack Obama's election.

Webmaster's Commentary:

There are still a couple months to get through before Obama is actually in office.

Russia would cross "a redline for the United States of America" if it were to base nuclear capable bombers in Cuba, a top US air force officer warned on Tuesday.

"If they did I think we should stand strong and indicate that is something that crosses a threshold, crosses a red line for the United States of America," said General Norton Schwartz, nominated to be the air force's chief of staff.

As General Schwartz made that statement, you could almost hear the breathless whispers of defense contractors in unison, saying "The cold war is BACK, baby!"

Chinese President Hu Jintao has called for stronger military ties with Russia in talks with visiting Defence Minister Anatoly Serdyukov, state media reported.

"As the strategic partnership between China and Russia develops, the relationship between the two militaries has also continued to become more consolidated and stronger," Xinhua news agency quoted Hu as saying.

With next year's 60th anniversary of the establishment of bilateral relations approaching and economic relations between them at historic highs, the two nations should also advance ties in other areas, Hu said.

Webmaster's Commentary:

Translation: "We better get ready, the US is dying and likely to start shooting in all directions in its final death throes!"

"I want to tell you a 'terrible military secret,'" Putin said. "When we announced that our military ships would go to Venezuela for joint exercises, we received very many inquiries—frankly speaking, I didn't expect this—from many countries with requests that our ships visit their ports."

My Disclaimer:

I present this information in my capacity as a human being, under Common Law, exercising my fundamental God given rights and freedoms. This information represents my private thoughts and beliefs and has been compiled and expressed for educational purposes only. In no way should it be construed as either legal or financial advice. If anyone feels a need to determine the accuracy of this information and the effectiveness of apply any of it, I strongly recommend consulting a competent expert on this subject matter.

Here's a Clue:Look the one place "They" never talk about.Look to your heart, as your competent expert lies within."Seek and you shall find."